Administrative Changes

[Vision]

Article from gojacks.com

SDSU announces administrative changes
South Dakota State University Director of Athletics Fred Oien has announced administrative changes within the Jackrabbit athletic department, including the hiring of Mark Burgers as associate athletic director for external operations.

Burgers, a native of De Smet, has spent the past nine years at Creighton University in Omaha, Neb., where he most recently has served as director of sales for the Bluejay athletic department. Previously, he was employed at Creighton as an account executive and assistant director of sales and marketing.

At SDSU, Burgers will oversee the ticket, sports information and marketing and promotion efforts for the Jackrabbits’ 21-sport varsity athletics program. He will begin his duties in late April.

Oien also announced that longtime compliance coordinator Kathy Heylens has been promoted to associate athletic director for compliance and will fill the role of senior woman administrator that has been vacant since Nancy Neiber retired last summer.

In addition, Jenna Friedrich recently joined the administrative staff as assistant athletic director for budget, aiding in budget monitoring and planning.

read more @ http://www.gojacks.com/ViewArticle.d...ATCLID=1416134

[NorCalJack]

Re: Administrative Changes

The Argus Leader has an article about the Administrative Changes also. They also have a few quotes from Dr. Oien.

SDSU moves to bolster athletic staff



Terry Vandrovec • tvandrovec@argusleader.com • March 25, 2008



Just as the wearying winter season comes to a close, the South Dakota State athletic department is closer to full strength.

Two roles that had been open since Nancy Neiber retired in June have finally been filled:

- Creighton director of sales Mark Burgers has taken the role of associate athletic director in charge of external affairs - namely tickets, sports information and marketing and promotion.

- Kathy Heylens will take on senior women's administrator duties while moving from compliance officer to associate athletic director for compliance.

- Also, Jenna Friedrich, recently a budget analyst with the state government, has been hired to fill a newly-created position of assistant athletic director in charge of budget. That move will alleviate some of the financial responsibilities on associate athletic director Rob Peterson.

All told, that's a significant influx of assistance at the end of the fourth and final year of the difficult NCAA Division I re-classification process.

"Our staff has been pulling the net," athletic director Fred Oien said. "The real issue for us was to get somebody who had a really strong marketing and sales background, which Mark has."

A De Smet native, Burgers played golf at Creighton and spent nine years working in the school's athletic department.
The younger brother of Mike Burgers, SDSU's coordinator of athletic development, he helped the Bluejays sell a school-record 12,888 season tickets for men's basketball this season (just six years earlier, the average attendance was 6,613).

While the new hires will help, the Jackrabbits still have vacancies for assistant coaches in volleyball and track, a facility manager and an equipment manager - not to mention more full-time positions that the department hopes to create.
"We've got a five-year plan for new positions and it's driven by budget, how quickly we can move forward," Oien said. "We still have a series of positions we're going to need if we're going to compete at the level we want to be."

You can read the entire article here.

Go State!!!
Go Jacks!!!